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Turning her head, she looks at the closed door, then slyly pulls her cell out again, tapping at the screen, while Mr. Long rambles on about today’s project and the grading scale.
“Why are you staring at the fucking harpy?” Davis asks from my side, leaning forward so his head is almost touching mine.
“Does she look twitchy?” I ask, not looking away from Penelope.
“Maybe,” he says after a moment.
“She was really fucking weird this weekend at dinner, and now this. She’s normally so annoyingly perfect. This is strange.”
“Who cares?” Davis says, flopping back into his chair, his body language relaxed and unaffected. “Maybe she’s taken too many diet pills, or that stick she’s got shoved up her ass has ridden up a bit. Since when do you give a fuck about her anyway?”
“I don’t,” I say with an agitated sigh. “But something is not quite right, and I want to know what it is. My dad isn’t backing down on this bullshit about me marrying her. Maybe I can use this odd behavior as ammunition to get him to finally accept it’s not going to happen.”
Mr. Long drones on, but I can’t take my eyes off Penelope. She’s fidgeting more visibly now, crossing and uncrossing those long legs of hers as she obsessively checks her cell phone, bringing the screen to life every few seconds.
“What the fuck?” I whisper beneath my breath, my eyes narrowing as I watch her hands curl into fists at her sides.
“Miss Rhodes,” Mr. Long says, calling on Penelope to answer a question.
I can’t see her face, but I notice the way her entire body freezes, her shoulders tensing so quickly they rise up almost to her ears.
“Miss Rhodes, would you like to offer up your opinion on the equilibrium concentrations?” Mr. Long asks as he moves through the rows of seats until he’s standing in front of her desk.
For a moment, there’s utter silence while she stares at Mr. Long and he stares expectantly back at her. Beneath the desk, I watch her slowly slide her cell phone into her blazer pocket, then her hands jump from her sides and cover her mouth, before she launches herself upright and bolts from the classroom.
A titter of laughter follows her dramatic departure. My lips part and my brow furrows. What the hell was that? I suppose her being sick could explain her strange fidgety behavior, but something feels off.
Mr. Long clears his throat, his eyes moving from the door Penelope just ran through and back to the rest of us still sitting in the room. “Err, well, err,” he says, clearing his throat again.
His eyes scan the room, landing on me, then moving to Davis to my right and Scott Langston to my left, then back to me again. “Mr. Winslow, perhaps you could go and check on Miss Rhodes and escort her to the nurse’s office.”
“Of course, Mr. Long,” I purr politely. Normally I’d be pissed at being sent to play nursemaid to that stuck-up bitch, but I want to know what she’s playing at, and following her now is the perfect opportunity.
Pushing out of my seat, I stride down the classroom, not rushing from the room but moving quickly enough that I’m in the hallway a moment later. Scanning the empty corridor from left to right, I sigh and start to walk in the direction of the closest bathroom. If she really is sick, then that’s where she’ll be.
When I reach the heavy wooden door, I push it open, not caring if anyone else is in there, but the bathroom’s empty, the doors on the stalls all ajar. Sighing, I walk in the direction of the nurse’s office, but I’ve only gone a few steps down the corridor when I hear Penelope’s voice.
“Of course, I texted her,” she whisper-hisses, her voice angry.
There’s a pause, and I wait for someone else to reply, but instead she speaks again. “We had a test; she should have been there. I’m going to kill her.”
Creeping closer to the stairwell that branches off to the right of the hallway, I move silently so she doesn’t hear me approaching. Peering through the partially open doorway, I find Penelope pacing to and fro, her cell phone gripped tightly to her ear, a scowl etched firmly across her lips.
“She’s so selfish. She doesn’t care,” she hisses, her face twisted into an ugly sneer.
I don’t know who she’s speaking to or about, but this behavior is so much more familiar than the scared deer-in-the-headlights act she tried to pull on Friday night. Moving backward, I lean against the wall opposite the door and wait, my arms crossed across my chest.
A pang of disappointment settles inside of me. For a moment, I’d been intrigued by this new side of Penelope. For a moment, I’d considered that maybe I’d been wrong, that the girl who pranced about like she was a prize show pony was the act, and that the nervous, quiet girl who had literally trembled after a few cruel words might have been the real person.
But who you are in the quiet moments when you think no one is watching is the real you, and that’s this version of Penelope. Manipulative, entitled, and mean.
Five minutes later, she emerges from the stairwell and as soon as she spots me, her body language changes. Her eyes hood, and she smiles—that fake, demure smile that repulses me.
“Gulliver, darling, are you waiting for me?” she asks, her tone all sweetness with a hint of seduction.
“Mr. Long wanted me to escort you to the nurse’s office,” I tell her coldly.
“I’m actually feeling a lot better now, but I’m so touched that you were worried about me,” she says, gliding over to me and hooking her arm through mine so effortlessly that I don’t have time to flinch away from her touch.
